Simone De Beauvoir

15. “He is the Subject; he is the Absolute. She is the Other” (Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 6). Discuss.

Despite having a relatively conservative childhood in which she was raised a Catholic daughter to a bourgeois family, Simone de Beauvoir steered away from the traditional familial roles and became a pioneer for modern feminism. Perhaps to the distaste of her family, she attended university and always placed the autonomy of the intellectual life above the traditional values of the time, which would entail marriage and childbearing. It is perhaps this freedom from traditional roles that allowed Beauvoir to step back and take a look at the state of women in society; her separation from the norms was what let
In terms of economic isolation, the female of Beauvoir’s day was generally not employed and was solely reliant on the income of the male for economic support. With this being said, it was not altogether impossible for a female to work and support herself, however the economic prospects of this woman would be dire at best. In many countries, the wages for women were lower than those of men, in Beauvoir’s time, and therefore a traditional family provided more economic prosperity for the women of the time, as the male would support the family with his higher earnings. It was also the case (and still to some degree is) that the women of the time would not be able to acquire a career with as much prestige or power as the men would, and therefore the economic mobility of the female worker was limited. As Beauvoir puts it, men “have better jobs, higher wages, and greater chances to succeed than their new female competitors…and they hold the most important positions.” (Beauvoir, 9) This can be seen as a system which is extremely beneficial to maintaining the state of patriarchy, because in order for a woman to become prosperous (had she not already been) she had to marry in order to achieve higher levels of income. In turn, this marriage also contributes to the system of patriarchy as the women ties herself closely to another male, and thus has his
The lack of female power is a vicious cycle, and can be seen as such through the medium of politics and government. There is no question that women were (and still are) very heavily underrepresented in politics, which means that the male population holds most of the power in government. In order for more women to become politicians, it is first necessary that they go to university and receive a higher education. The issue here lies in the fact that the school system is controlled heavily by the majority male government, many of whom will push the traditional patriarchal family values as they are benefited by them. Beauvoir dictates that this “tradition is reinforced by the child’s whole education: the present incorporates the past, and in the past all history was made by males.” (Beauvoir, 10) With the patriarchy controlling the education of young women, less women will be encouraged to strive for intellectual greatness and will instead probably follow in the footsteps of their ancestors and maintain a traditional familial role. This role is not only perpetuated in the classroom for women, but generally it is also perpetuated in the home life of a child. If a young woman sees that her mother does not have a job, but instead that her only responsibility is to take care of the family, she is thus more likely to adopt these